


The Black Pharaoh, And Other Mythconceptions

by completetheory



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works
Genre: A xenophilic pharaoh made the pyramids, Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Alien Gender/Sexuality, Aliens didn't make the pyramids, Ancient Egypt, Chaos Theory, Dabbled in Aklo with mixed success, Historical Inaccuracy, Historical References, Languages and Linguistics, M/M, Multi, Non-Explicit Sex, Other, Pre-Canon, Queer Themes, The only kind of Sothery I do, Yog-Sothery, chaos is order is chaos is etc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:21:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23352352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completetheory/pseuds/completetheory
Summary: Many times Nyarlathotep incarnated himself on Earth, and many times did he interest himself in the little games of human beings. This is a short tale involving one Pharaoh, Nephren-Ka, moved to worship the darkness as Akhenaten worshiped the sun, and both knew two halves of the same whole.Cameos by the Unnamed King and the author of the Necronomicon, (prior to his cosmic book deal.)
Relationships: Hastur/Nyarlathotep (Cthulhu Mythos), Nyarlathotep/Nephren-Ka
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30





	1. Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MadScientific](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadScientific/gifts).



To one such as Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, whose abilities to manipulate time and space were infinite, the entire epoch of humanity was an open book from beginning to end.

An entity of his longevity and abilities could skip around in the pages of history, and deny oneself the unfolding progression of linear time. Or, he could peek at spoilers to impress, or horrify, a mortal with some future event. The index of the library of the cosmos was open to Nyarlathotep, but he didn't desire every book or planet. Some were boring. Earth had potential, before, during, _and_ after human beings.

He stepped through spacetime like an open doorway, arriving in Pharaonic Egypt, 780 BC.

Rather than draw negative attention by taking a body that had 'too many' mouths (could one have too many?) or a bloody tongue ripping from the ceiling of his head, Nyarlathotep adopted a form likened to these inhabitants. Black skin, lush kinky hair braided back, and lean, muscular limbs. He indulged vanity with his face, orchestrating thick lips and a wide nose, looking into the waters to see the beautiful dark smile reach hazel eyes. As he left the bank of the Nile, docile crocodiles roused from sunning themselves and twined across his legs, snuggling him like cats. He scritched their jaws, and batted playfully at their snouts.

"You again? Still the same after so many eons? A successful design on other worlds, also." He bobbed down. They offered excited coughs and peeping cries like hatchlings, as if Nyarlathotep was their mother. He gave each a scaled parting kiss, but soon grew bored, and ambled toward Tanis.

The Chaos belatedly remembered clothes, materializing a crimson robe. Red was a color he liked, and could adopt as a theme on down the ages. Red for vitality, human blood, warnings, and wickedness. He'd challenge preconceptions, investigate the amusement potential, and might include these people in his games. The Old Ones were here already, he could feel their whispers on the wind. Sunken cities and legends of antiquity.

He would come again, earlier than now, but this was a marvelous place in the story to begin reading.

His Majesty Nephren-Ka ruled Tanis, Nyarlathotep learned from the people, those who bid him welcome with enthusiasm born from the pleasant tang of his unearthly aura. The game was far too easy if they stooped to immediate worship. Nyarlathotep, remiss, dialed back the charismatic intensity of his avatar, and clouded his excitable atomic structure. He watched the throng depart with muttered confusion that they had not heard what he commanded, and, freshly reminded of worship, approached a temple.

This was a domain for the fish goddess Hatmehit, replete with chambers for prayer, donations, solicitations, statues and fantastic murals. It was enough to satisfy him that this was a good place, if only to serve its purpose; he didn't make moral judgments often. What humans called good was often simply what advantaged them personally or in small groups, what they called evil was that which frustrated some desire (itself perhaps good, or evil, or neither).

Although military garrisons ringed the perimeter of the city, he was permitted into the walled citadel without challenge. He beheld a self-contained bustling metropolis of people, animals, woven baskets and rugs. Nyarlathotep drank in the chaos of busy commerce, the voices all intermingling, here and there an intelligible word rising above the symphony of the human hive. It took his breath, when he remembered the necessity of breathing, the better to ensure a convincing disguise.

The royal guard denied him entry into the royal palace, as he'd dampened down the charisma that shot frissons of joy down the spines of mortal entities. _Did he have a name?_

"Nyarlathotep," _-hotep_ he'd cribbed from the humans’ temple, _is content_ , and _nyarlat_ from his native Aklo for _I do this myself._ Roughly translated, it was _I make myself satisfied._

"What are you?"

He declined low-hanging fruit. "A healer. A messenger. A prophet. I would see nswt Nephren-Ka and give him counsel and good health from the gods."

Such as they were. Azathoth moaned uncertainly in sleep, and such things were as good as blessings to those who heard. Meanwhile, his _e' athaiy'-ei_ would adore this place's architecture--

Nyarlathotep stopped, avatar squinting uncertainly. Something coiled nearby, a vibration that _felt_ of Carcosa. But with Aldebaran of Taurus below the horizon, the Tattered King couldn't be here - unless they'd been summoned a month ago.

Exciting! Nyarlathotep fought the impulse to warp space and time around him to find the answer. He'd linger deliciously, and not spoil the mystery.

He tuned back to the guards' inquiry. _Which gods_. Not Hatmehit? Nor did he confess he was the Soul of Azathoth, who was himself the quantum Lord of All. Boredom threatened, and he affected impatience, "Will he see me or not?"

"I'll see you."

The guards bowed, and Nephren-Ka advanced. He was a very dark man with a broad smile, of Libyan ancestry and likely of military stock. Nyarlathotep noted the guards, and inclined also into a bow. Being beheaded for disrespect would be an inconvenience only, but he was mildly attached to this form already and did not wish to be so rudely ejected from the game.

"Your arrival's fortunate." Nephren-Ka indicated the Crawling Chaos should follow. Nyarlathotep complied, and noted ceramic murals depicting scenes of war, prosperity and conquest.

"Why is that?" Nyarlathotep inquired.

Nephren-Ka led Nyarlathotep to a room, empty save for a carved obelisk with a box balanced on top. "This was a gift from a Minoan fisher, thought to be recovered from a sunken civilization - like the Greeks' Atlantis."

Nyarlathotep recognized it at once. The Shining Trapezohedron, a mere trinket from the Unspeakable One: a polished splinter of Hastur's essence given him in a moment of delight eons past and eons to come. It had a spiritual radioactivity, an obsessive allure, the same as the King themself inspired fixations. As all roads led to Rome, so too did all neurons, once alerted, reroute to Hastur's aim. Food, sleep, love, the very topography of the brain detoured, chemically addicted to their Majesty - to pay homage to the fabric of the King’s universe.

"When I stare into it," Nephren-Ka said, "I see the gods."

"I don't doubt that." Nyarlathotep's teeth flashed in a smile. He had no inclination to correct the assumption that residents of the Seven Sisters were godly. "It is an antidipyramid. A gift to me that I misplaced. Very dangerous, and very useful." 

As most useful tools could be dangerous when misused. A hatchet was neither evil, nor good. It was in form purely neutral.

Nephren-Ka gave the slightest muscle twitch, betraying fear that Nyarlathotep might confiscate it.

"I'd no sooner take fire from ancient humanity." Nyarlathotep reassured. Something in his eyes that looked like the cosmos itself drew Nephren-Ka's attention. "You can be burned, or warm yourself. That choice is yours."

Meaningful choice was informed choice, to a point. A warning was fair; all players should know the rules. And cheaters should be either punished or admired, depending on their motivation and execution.

nswt Nephren-Ka took Nyarlathotep to his meeting chamber, reluctantly leaving the crystal behind. In no time, the Chaos was play-wrestling the pharaoh's cheetahs.

"You risk obsession if you stare too long." Nyarlathotep let one of the cats rub against his face, "Let the stone grant knowledge, and teach balance. Humans are prone to extremes, and to either end lies ruination. Stare not too long alone, or risk forgetting yourself. Some six or seven minds together should dilute the effects enough that you all benefit. --Also..."

Nephren-Ka was, gratifyingly, listening without the aura of charisma to guide him. "Also?"

"Darkness. The stone in light can show you only one way. In darkness it becomes a portal, a pathway, through which I come when called."

The pharaoh regarded him with new interest, noticing Nyarlathotep on occasion forgot to breathe or blink, and sat with carved stillness, disinterested in the lifelike motion of human beings. The black skin shone, muscles underneath moved as his own, and the cheetahs were not afraid, but he could not be human. Not even a sorcerer who could defy death and go forth into the world without mortal weakness.

"Which god are you?"

Unlike the guards, Nephren-Ka's question had conviction, and - like the cheetahs - he was unafraid.

"I am no god." Nyarlathotep kissed idle at the ear of the nearest cat, undignified in affection, "Merely not of this world. I was born of the inner fabric of the universe, knit whole from the womb of black space whence all stars came. What I do and know may be godly to you, as what you do and know is godly to a child."

He retreated to the balcony overlooking the citadel, watching the setting sun. Strength came to him as the orb vanished, in celestial alchemy unknown even to future devotees some centuries on. They knew Nyarlathotep loved the darkness, and had fathered all the bats of the world.

"I'll visit your continent, two thousand years before this date, to establish myself as a rumor. This future is uncertain; it may have no effect, it may be you hear of me in the marketplace, or at your mother's knee. But in this time I am new, because I began here. I will overlap my history on this planet like a geode, crystallizing layers and layers over millions of years..."

Nephren-Ka had the misfortune of looking disbelieving, though he was too polite to call Nyarlathotep a liar. To live for millions of years at least, travel through time, and not be of this world, was difficult to believe. Mankind's gods were of mankind, and behaved like those who worshiped them. Nyarlathotep decided it was time for a demonstration, pointing to the square. A red mare led by a merchant trotted below.

"See that horse? In four minutes, she'll spook at a shadow in the market. The bridle is rotted - the animal will bolt and break the leg of the young girl standing by the pottery."

Nephren-Ka began to run. It was interesting to see a man so poised and dignified making to bolt; the cheetahs followed in play, but stopped at a whistled command by the pharaoh.

"Where are you going?" Nyarlathotep thought of the murals of conquest, mystified, "You can't be squeamish - don't you want to see if I'm correct?"

"If I know of a tragedy, it's my duty to prevent it. I enforce ma'at." Nephren-Ka made it down the stairs and into the square. He didn't expect **Nyarlathotep** to prevent it, the Crawling Chaos mused, following.

"You there!" The pharaoh barked, "Get that horse out of the marketplace!"

The guards, roused too late, stood amazed as the shadow of a great bird passed overhead. The horse pulled away from the shape, the bridle snapped, as predicted, and the animal's sudden freedom, mixed with heady fear, was gilded invitation to bolt.

Nephren-Ka looked to Nyarlathotep, "I believe you. Please. Stop this."

No time to inquire whether Nephren-Ka believed Nyarlathotep _responsible_ for the event, and innumerable witnesses. The Chaos opted not to rip forth another appendage from his current form, speaking instead to the horse in guttural language.

"Nog'geb- _hai._ Nnn'ya!"

The horse's eyes rolled wide, and she reared up again with flecks of spit across her muzzle.

"Nnn'ya," Nyarlathotep promised. _I will protect._ He opened his hands, presenting himself, the darkness augmenting his animal charisma to a fault. Onlookers would later report his eyes seemed to glow red like the eye of Taurus of Aldebaran. The horse, almost embarrassed, calmed and approached him to bury her face into his hands. He stroked, patted the thick neck. The guards were suitably awed by this demonic spell to calm the beast - _come here now, I protect you._ He merely spoke, and the horse believed.

"This," Said Nephren-Ka, with political inspiration, "Is my new vizier, Nyarlat."

Nyarlathotep threaded through the throngs after the pharaoh, amused more than insulted by the presumptuousness. This human had a unique fire that drew him to each new permutation of unguessable will. He could predict most people without looking, but some delighted him.

"You didn't tell them my full name." He observed.

"I doubt it's your name at all," Nephren-Ka returned, "But later, I'll grant you the suffix. That way my people will know how you've pleased me."

He didn't seek to command, nor did he seem afraid. Nor - as Nyarlathotep guessed he might - did he blame the Crawling Chaos for the near accident. He stared at the back of the pharaoh's head, deciding to stay a while.

Just to see.


	2. Middle

'A while' became weeks, and Nyarlathotep found himself at Nephren-Ka's side, advising small land disputes, larger public policy, tax collection and temple construction in a time of great uncertainty, where many local rulers were quick to proclaim themselves kings. Word spread of the man by the throne, whispering into the ear of the pharaoh. No one saw him eat, sleep, or change his clothes. Some swore he failed to breathe, and sat in reflection as still and grim as a corpse.

Then the second person came out of the desert: a ragged beggar with bandage-wrapped feet, who hid from the sun and embraced the night. But they did not approach the citadel.

Nyarlathotep drank in the changes with the joy that was Chaos, his essence, the promise of novelty. Behind him, Nephren-Ka undressed in his bedchamber, as comfortable around Nyarlathotep as if they were wedded. He could do far worse, but the Crawling Chaos wasn't looking at Nephren-Ka's body when the pharaoh spoke.

"The spell you put on the horse."

This was the first time that Nephren-Ka mentioned 'magic'. The topic could become boring quickly, so he didn't bait carefully. "What of it?"

"The animals all like you, even the crocodiles. Is this something you do consciously, or a part of who you are?"

Nephren-Ka asked questions that penetrated like vines through stones, impossibly patient and relentless, and capable of toppling buildings. There was beauty in his approach, whether unconscious or studied.

"Animals sense the spark of the infinite. Human ego provides a filter, but if I amplify my nature, they too succumb, and worship. I'm of an evolutionary stage beyond humanity, and mine is a sweet call."

Nephren-Ka continued the slow invasion. "Is it my free will that reaches for you with joy? Or do you guide me, as you did the horse."

Nyarlathotep flashed incisors, laughing. "I understand your concern. Ahhh... how to say this without insulting you."

"Say it." The Pharaoh offered, sitting. He had no vulnerability in the iron behind his eyes, waiting to exert itself against the next obstacle. Charming, malleable. He was a human that came about only once in a hundred thousand.

"I don't play games with no opportunity for me to lose." Nyarlathotep leaned backward, letting the strong wind play with his hair, and the braids looked like writhing tentacles. "I don't like boredom. Taking your choices away is boring."

Nephren-Ka was satisfied. This was no self-congratulatory answer of moral superiority. It was frank, and reassuring.

Nyarlathotep added, "It wasn't a spell. I spoke to the horse in the Old Tongue. Merely reassurance."

"Would you teach me?"

Nyarlathotep considered. "I could try. There are glottal stops, difficult for this larynx. You might be understood, but you'll always have a strong accent. I suppose there's no harm in that. But I warn you, Nephren-Ka. You've taken a step down a path in history, and you can't take many more before you fully commit."

"Will it harm my people?"

His people, his people. He was laughably parental. Thinking nothing of potentially harming himself, and trusting in the enigmatic future vision of Nyarlathotep. "Your question is too general. What is harm? Physical harm? Foreign invaders? Mental discomfiture, if they discover us in your bedchamber?"

Nephren-Ka re-evaluated, which was good. Nyarlathotep wasn't an electronic fortune machine to be consulted without regard, and if he was slighted, he could turn nasty - like anyone.

"Will you tell me when I'm close to the last decision of this committing path?" The pharaoh decided, "I'll be better informed myself, and capable of judging."

"Yes." Nyarlathotep was satisfied.

"Now, about us _in my bedchamber._ " Nephren-Ka indicated beside himself. Nyarlathotep slunk forward, climbing up deliberately slow and settling himself behind the mortal. He wrapped both arms around the pharaoh, closed his eyes and rested his chin against Nephren-Ka's shoulder. He could feel a heartbeat, the strong pump of blood through the animate meat that housed his electrical impulses. Meat that encased the calcified support girders, sheltering the delicate fibers of nerves - such a fragile, glorious machine.

"It's strange that you haven't shown your true form." Nephren-Ka kissed the face so close to his own.

" _True?_ " Nyarlathotep pondered, "An infant species with a mere six million years of evolutionary history, already obsessed with categorization. This is an _avatar_ , my pharaoh, not a lie. I choose it to represent myself. It's as much me as any other form I might take, from the lowliest worm to the infinite wingspan of the void Haunter."

Nephren-Ka was mildly reproached, and didn't argue. He thought deeply over everything that Nyarlathotep said, and sometimes asked for elaboration, but more often allowed facts to pool together as he sorted through them. Nyarlathotep didn't know what qualities were considered superior for human leaders, but decided Nephren-Ka was a remarkable human person.

He noted that the Pharaoh heeded his warning about the Trapezohedron's allure, and didn't go back, either singularly or with company. Of course, it'd be boring also if everyone took his advice without question... Meanwhile, he'd thought the Trapezohedron had been the source of the Hastur-feeling, but Nyarlathotep, in a rare event of galactic irony, was utterly wrong.

The beggar came forth into the citadel at last, hooded and robed, and demanded an audience with the pharaoh. They refused to unmask. Nephren-Ka consulted Nyarlathotep, who shrugged from his perch on the pharaoh's throne-arm. 

Nephren-Ka thought about it. "Speak."

The masked beggar introduced themself as Nebamun, an artisan who had fallen on hard times owing to arthritis. Over the last month, they'd had strange dreams, and prayed to an equally strange god who ‘wore a covered silk mask’. They avoided daylight, and searched the stars for "a map home".

Nephren-Ka looked to Nyarlathotep, who sat with the occasional head-cocking to indicate he was alive. His muscles crawled, feeling an itch that couldn't be scratched, and he rested his head upon his knee.

Nebamun continued, "They call for my help. Three times I've dreamed and the most piteous cries come upon me and rend my soul. I went into the desert thrice also, without result. They suffer terribly."

A god asking help from a beggar. Nyarlathotep's eyes traced across the king on his throne, from his perch above. He read uncertainty in Nephren-Ka's body: knowing what sat beside him, the Pharaoh was less inclined to dismiss the artisan's story as fantasy.

Nephren-Ka asked, "What does this god look like? Have you seen them without the mask?"

"Never. They wear rags, and have command of a language I don't speak. I can say - they say _Y'edyuh tlahlv_ , plaintively, and cast about with long sleeves, as if blind."

Nephren-Ka's education was sufficient to recognize the language, but not to decipher it - _I need_ he understood, but he didn't know _tlahlv._ This proved the beggar's god was of the same stock as his mysterious lover. He looked up to Nyarlathotep, expecting to see an enigmatic almost-smile playing about his lips, but was shocked to see the Chaos' teeth exposed in a snarl. Veins stood out on his hands, gripping the throne arm.

"What is _tlahlv?_ " Nephren-Ka asked Nyarlathotep quietly.

"Freedom."

Nephren-Ka didn't know what to do with the sudden recalcitrant nature of his companion, ordinarily so willing to advise. He told Nebamun he'd adjourn to think, (and didn't miss his guards' confusion that he'd give any credibility to a story as outlandish as a tortured god crying out to an ex-artisan). He found Nyarlathotep brooding in the stables, sitting among the basenji dogs assigned to watch the horses. The disciplinarian dogs were predictably slobbering all over Nyarlathotep, and though his hands moved mechanically to give them favor, his expression was grim.

"Is this otherworlder your companion? Or your enemy? You recognized them." Nephren-Ka hunted for clues.

Nyarlathotep, ordinarily so flexible, was as stubborn as a donkey, rubbing the nearest canine head with vigor. He stared off into some unseen audient void. "Do as you will."

The pharaoh didn't push, addressing a servant. "You, bring three guards and ready four horses. Nebamun will ride with me."

The boy complied, and Nephren-Ka looked to Nyarlathotep. "I'd like to help, but if you can't speak to me, I must use my own judgment. I'll return in a few days, with luck."

Nyarlathotep watched his back until he was gone, with distant, mounting feline affection.

Nephren-Ka was troubled, but largely forgiving of Nyarlathotep's attitude. He'd never been like this, and must have some personal reason. Not long into the desert, Nyarlathotep's own horse, a curious blue-black Arabian, caught up with the pharaoh's troupe.

"How arrogant is even a god-king who offers help to my kind?" Nyarlathotep wondered. His horse wasn't even winded, despite the few hours lead and the speed it must have demonstrated to close the distance. Nephren-Ka laughed.

"If any inside my kingdom ask for my help, they receive it. I'm glad to have you, if they speak only the Old Tongue, I'd like translations."

He'd banked on this otherworlder being Nyarlathotep's companion, and also on the promised warning of that last decision of the committed path.

They found the necropolis at Nebamun's direction, but the graves gave the horses endless distress, so trying to force them over the threshold was dangerous. Nephren-Ka took his horse back some paces, calming with words in the Old Tongue, and then left the horse with Nebamun. They might be a thief, who'd run off with the mounts, but Nephren-Ka doubted it.

"What do you think of him?" He asked Nyarlathotep, who he hoped might say more about Nebamun than of the rest of the situation.

"He's an acolyte." Nyarlathotep would say no more.

The necropolis was deserted, but for a foul wind that blew up dust, and cloth tied against pillars, in startling shapes that looked like human beings. Nyarlathotep strode into the territory with a sneer, outpacing the torches, yet surefooted in the darkness. The guards, not in soft voices, called him 'wryt'. 

_Monster._

He stopped before a temple, and waited. Nephren-Ka arrived, and then lit the way into the limestone building. He also lit torches along the walls as he passed, fearless. He was pharaoh - behold - what did he have to fear? Neither gods, nor those who enslaved gods. Nyarlathotep slunk after him like a big cat, sullen for reasons he would not discuss.

The hall opened into a larger room, empty but for a large table in the center. On the table was a pile of rags, sun-bleached yellow. Spilling from the folds were sand mounds, sculpted into human form. Around the table's perimeter were glyphs in dried blood, which Nephren-Ka took in with horror.

"Your second decision." Nyarlathotep intoned, "On the path from whence no man returns."

"What sorcery _is_ this?" Nephren-Ka made as if to touch, and the sand, animate, drew away. The rags suggested a crouching form. "We do not do such even with our cattle. This person. You are a person?"

Nothing.

His Majesty implored, "Don't fear me. I won't harm you. Speak."

It was not the figure who spoke, but a man from the antechamber, approaching. "O' king, life, wealth, and health, my lord Nephren-Ka the blessed. I am Sabra, your servant, in this life and the next." The new man bowed deeply, making a gesture with both hands that drew attention to slow healing wounds on his palms.

"Account for yourself. How did you come by those injuries?" Nephren-Ka demanded. He indicated the being, " What is this?"

Sabra wasn't surprised, squinting at the form. "My servitor."

Nyarlathotep's smile multiplied the level of threat in his face by several degrees. Nephren-Ka, who didn't wish to witness a murder, interposed himself between them.

"All that is yours is mine. I bid you release them." Nephren-Ka's voice was firm.

"Release them!" Sabra shook his head, "O king, life, wealth, and health--"

"Enough." Nephren-Ka cut into the standard veneration, "Am I your king?"

Sabra waited a moment too long, then bowed his head in silent observance.

"Then do as I say."

The magician scraped a sigil of blood-encrusted stone to oblivion, and the sand-formed ragged creation crawled toward the opening, to the ground at Nephren-Ka's feet. More pitiful, more weak than Nebamun had been. He saw blood around the rags at the mouth, and impulsively took his knife to cut across his hand, lifting the red welling injury to the ragged figure.

He looked satisfied when the sand composite drew near and drank, adopting a paternal voice. "I don't allow any in my kingdom to go hungry." He looked to the figure, lustily gulping. "What are you named?"

"Please." Sabra interjected, "The servitor's name is an unspeakable power to them. All things are written in the tomes..."

Nyarlathotep realized from Hastur's demeanor that they must've been called from Carcosa on the cusp of the last possible day, and kept in waning light, away from the rejuvenation of the Seven Sisters - intentionally? _All things are written._ Deprived of a real consecration point, as this tomb was neither abandoned, nor Sabra's to give, Hastur's form was liquid and reliant upon flesh anchors to remain.

"Hastur." He said, pointedly. Both an answer to Nephren-Ka and defiance of Sabra's request. The magician sucked in a horrified breath, but the sand entity didn't move to eviscerate Nyarlathotep. That wasn't how the _unspeakable one_ behaved, even cloaked in human flesh. The rags coalesced, the sand firming and Hastur's shape approximating a more comfortable figure.

They scrubbed the rags at their head into a rough kafiya, serving as mask for a face that wasn't as human as the rest. Despite their freedom and apparent mistreatment, they had no interest in violence against Sabra. Houses didn't collapse in revenge, cities didn't smite their bombers. Hastur, Carcosa, old and young, was more interested in their new builder than their attempted ruiner.

"Nephren-Ka." They said, carefully.

He beamed. "It is so." To Sabra, he said, "Return to civilization, that you may, at length, act more civilized toward these visitors from far off lands. You should bring no shame to Egypt while I rule it."

Sabra hung his head, rebuked, and Nephren-Ka shrugged off his cloak, his protection against the freezing desert evening. He draped it about Hastur's shoulders. "Come with me back to the palace. I'll give you an ox to drink."

Hastur followed Nephren-Ka and Nyarlathotep without a word, staying upright by means of odd swaying that connected them always to the sandy ground, picking up and dropping grains in an unfathomable calculation of how much was necessary for locomotion. Nephren-Ka bound up his injured hand and rode in silence back to the palace, dismissing Nebamun with money for lodgings and food, asking him to return for audience in a few days.

Nyarlathotep was astonished. The pharaoh did all but invite Hastur to recuperate in his bed, and remained close by, in case any of his servants found Hastur's ragged form somehow peculiar.

"This one doesn't imitate a native as well as you." Nephren-Ka's tone was warm. "You said I'd have a choice, but that was no choice at all, to alleviate the suffering of a guest in my lands."

Nyarlathotep sat intensely meditative on a chair, thoughts and gaze far away. "A _guest_ who had all the appearance of a demon. A guest who suckled your blood like a calf offered a teat. A guest called up by a magician to be his servitor." That much had shaken Nyarlathotep personally. He'd known humans could call the Great Old and Outer Ones both, though not as well as he needed. Yog-Sothoth curse those who found information enough to be hazards, not enough to earn proper _respect._

But the pharaoh had acted utterly without knowing. As Hastur joined them in the private room, he waved his attendants away.

"Hastur." Nephren-Ka said, either oblivious or electing to ignore how strength seemed to come from the invocation alone, "How do you feel?"

"Better." Hastur's voice sounded far away. They cast about, amorphous in the function of their neck, seeking something, but didn't find it. "Thank you. King."

"It's well that you called to my subject." Nephren-Ka found gratitude awkward and sought to avoid it politely, something of the bashful boy in his regal poise. "I hope that you and Nyarlathotep are companions."

Hastur snickered, an odd but appealing sound, from no throat, just the vibration of loose gravelly pieces in the faux-larynx.

Nyarlathotep refused demure embarrassment. "My beloved, my accomplice, my friend, and my high priest. They're the gift-giver whose gem you locked away for being too captivating."

If Nephren-Ka was anything, he was supremely difficult to frighten. Told from his boyhood that he too was a God, he had reigned with only the concepts of other gods. Now, faced with concepts-given-form beyond all human understanding, he grasped them fearlessly for his own person, but with care, as if he feared to hurt them.

Hastur accounted for their own weakness as Nyarlathotep had suspected, owing to a summoning of insufficient generosity.

Nephren-Ka encompassed his chambers with a gesture, to Nyarlathotep. " _Ygg-ya hna tyoib?_ "

Hastur was startled, both to hear the Old Tongue, stilted as it was, and the content of the question. _How do I give this?_

Nyarlathotep clarified, "Your _palace?_ Or this room? The room will do. But we'll never have private sex here again."

Hastur interjected in the dreary sand-whipped wind voice, the graves lending thick inhibitions to their voice, "For me?"

"For you, _'abi._ " Nephren-Ka confirmed, " _ekyoith-Hastur._ "

_It belongs to Hastur._

The heavily accented Aklo was - even without ritual candle lighting or invocation - sufficient invitation, as a vampire might seek only to be asked inside. Hastur's form grew at once more solid. Their rags became rich and flowed into a gold-dyed linen reminiscent of a gown. Their skin flowed likewise from sand to sable flesh, with a flash of knitted brown bone underneath, carved from the same luxurious wood as the bedposts.

More than the blood of the Pharaoh or the ox, the four walls of the room energized Hastur, lent them a limestone spine. They gasped like a parched throat given water at last. If Nyarlathotep's subtle biology betrayed to careful observation that he was inhuman, then Hastur's ability to mimic mortal form was vastly more conditional. Their face was naked, ebon and androgynous, and beautifully crafted. But then, revealing, their mouth opened too wide, and they had the teeth of a crocodile and the eyes of a jackal.

"This place gets right under your fingernails," Hastur breathed, "So warm, so cold, so empty, so fertile. These monuments will stand for eons, armies will come and go... remembered and forgotten, lost and found and lost forever."

Nyarlathotep let them prophesy, grinning with teeth that couldn't match Hastur's set. "My lover is a fan of paradox." He explained idly, "And they can drink the past and future of a foundation, and anchor themself best to those that exist as contradiction in terms."

Nephren-Ka couldn't help but note, "Your voice changed. Are all your people so malleable?"

"Everything is." Hastur whirled excitedly on Nephren-Ka, orange eyes big, "Everything changes and remains unchanged! ...You have so many mosaics. Can I see them?"

Nephren-Ka gave Hastur the tour, pleased to note their strength did not abate the further they got from the room given to them. All architecture warranted their enthusiasm: the mosaics, the furniture, and - belatedly - the guards and local culture, using old slang they couldn't possibly know from introduction into the necropolis, and at the end of a long day having firmly established themself as yet another weirdo that the pharaoh - life, wealth, and health - had brought into the palace as a fixture.

Whatever their judgments, he didn't plan to change himself. There was no way on Earth that Nephren-Ka would be inhospitable to foreigners, no matter how far they had journeyed, if they were well-mannered. And Nyarlathotep was well-mannered, indeed.

At least he thought so until the Crawling Chaos took to caressing him in front of Hastur. Then his face grew hot. Nyarlathotep noticed his unease, pausing in running his hands down the claimed flesh of his chest.

"You prefer me separately." Nyarlathotep guessed. Nephren-Ka showed uncertainty seldom, and so when he did, it was all the more pronounced - when being thanked, and when taken negatively by surprise.

"It feels unusual not to invite you." Nephren-Ka appealed to Hastur.

Hastur and Nyarlathotep exchanged rapid Aklo, too much for the pharaoh, but he thought he heard _oktmyoi_ , us, and _sll'-ha_ , an overly formal method of invitation.

"If you can handle us both," Hastur said in Coptic, "You can have us both."

Nephren-Ka could handle them both, at least in their human embodiments. Nyarlathotep, veteran of many adoring nights with the Pharaoh, was yet astonished at his vigor. More, though this was his first encounter with multiple lovers, he left neither neglected. By dusk's fading light, he pressed close to the newly formed skin of Hastur's form, twisting to kiss Nyarlathotep's mouth as his fingers held novel flesh under the shifting robes.

The parts of Hastur that protruded from under the cloak were human, or at least suggestive of native life. The parts that hid beneath were a more nebulous origin, yielding to his touch with a cool, but pleasing slipperiness unlike human flesh. In some places the seam between cloak and body was nonexistent, and one blended into the other, and when Nephren-Ka licked and then nibbled at the fabric, Hastur made encouraging gasps.

"O king," Nyarlathotep intoned when he had a moment free from his own duties of neck kissing and shoulder massaging, "You are nothing if not flexible in mind."

"Not in body?" Nephren-Ka joked, gathering up some of Hastur's cloak, wringing it to the sound of ever-encouraging groans, "You may spoil me for human sex."

Nyarlathotep smiled crookedly. "That is the plan." 

Nephren-Ka continued to surprise him, turning to capture him in an embrace and grind his body into Nyarlathotep's. "I will dedicate a temple to you both, south of Thebes. I will fill it with sacred vessels of precious metals."

"Huh." Hastur came out of their pleasant, quasi-orgasmic daze to comment, "You're some khar. Giving us _Hm nTr_ , too?"

"All gods need priests... even if you are not gods, my people will accept you thus." Nephren-Ka kissed down the side of Nyarlathotep's neck, missing the stunned expression on his face for pure angle alone, "And a barge upon the river, of cedar from the princes of the Lebanon, so that your temple might be accessible for those to pay tribute."

Nyarlathotep stroked the pharaoh's hair, tangled his fingers in it. Rare that the Crawling Chaos, so deft of tongue, could find nothing to say. "Nephren-Ka." He decided, and then closed his eyes as the pharaoh's mouth found his avatar's dick. The accursed cluster of nerves could be so distracting, but he did not allow it to fully banish the itch of what he was keeping an internal eye on. Another choice made further down the path that would obliterate Nephren-Ka's future; one that would damn him as the _jzf.t pr-aA_ , for whom future white scholars would name him _the Black Pharaoh_ , but whose title would more aptly translate to _the Disorder and Evil of the Great House._

"This is your third action."

Nyarlathotep felt no responsibility for Nephren-Ka's fate. True, he was here, presenting himself to be thoroughly enjoyed and charming enough that the pharaoh seemed to adore him, but all this was Nephren-Ka's decision. If it were not the Crawling Chaos, some other thing would come out of the reign of Nephren-Ka to illuminate to the people their ruler's wonts. And he did not think the pharaoh evil, either - much like the goddess in the temple, he felt a compelling pull toward Nephren-Ka as a more fundamental universal goodness.

Others would be less generous, he knew, but he didn't yet interrupt the king's pleasure, coming modestly with low, gutteral joy as Hastur draped across them both.

"How about it? What a king. Life, wealth and health." Hastur cajoled as they was drawn into an embrace, between the other two, content, but excitable.

"I will make the gem the center of the temple. It symbolizes your love? Your connection to one another?" Nephren-Ka asked.

"Oooh," Hastur laughed, " _hem-ek_ , you have my friend firmly by the _ib_."

Nyarlathotep took one of Hastur's hands, addressing Nephren-Ka, "There's no shame in my affections for this miscreant, but I'd advise you be careful to assume I feel exactly as your people do always. Many things are recognizable. Some, only rough comparisons can be made. And a few things are beyond even **your** impressive capacity for understanding."

Of Nephren-Ka's understanding, Nyarlathotep could guess little. Of his actions, Nyarlathotep knew much, for Nephren-Ka began construction of the temple the day after. The Crawling Chaos made himself unusually scarce that week, and heard through the palace gossip that Sabra had returned to have audience with the king.

 _He fears retaliation._ Nyarlathotep mused, _How like one so accustomed to meting it out._ He perched high on the structure overlooking the squat mud homes below, in the seething city. Here and there he picked out a life, none brighter than any of the rest, and followed it through a series of decisions and ultimate terminus, then moved to another, always the watched unaware of the watcher. A hundred lifetimes unwound before him, of pleasures and pains, low fires at night and always a new day waiting for those who endured. The cosmic infinity: today a woman selling eggs at the marketplace, tomorrow cheeping chicks. All too soon, fragile bird bones scattered to the landfills.

As an entity of chaotic impulses, some eggs he longed to nurture, and some to break. But if he'd truly desired breaking eggs, Sabra would have already been ruined, and he wouldn't even need to set Tanis alight to do it. A trip to the void would destroy the fragile underpinnings of his consciousness - Nyarlathotep almost wanted to introduce him to the Creator, but taking vengeance on Hastur's behalf felt crass and unnecessary. If the Inhabitant wanted revenge, they was more than capable.

 _Everything changes and remains unchanged._ Hastur was merely a pastoral demigod (as well as, occasionally, a pasture), and in time, they might ascend to higher worship, but they had a clarity and an enthusiasm that Nyarlathotep found endearing.

He closed his eyes and wondered if he should have discouraged the building of the temple. He could see it from here, rising on the horizon line, stones quarried of limestone and hauled by thousands of workers, paid in grain. None were tireless, but they accomplished this feat of engineering with sheer determination and numbers, to say nothing of the genius with which they employed their limited materials. They labored to wet the sand, using logs to roll the great stones many times bigger than themselves.

 _We are not gods._ He leaned his hands in his lap, resigning himself to the idea. He was already beginning to suspect that the same iron grit that led humans to accomplish these marvels would be an impediment when it came to _idée fixe._

Worship might amuse, but he'd have to be careful - go backward, and forward, over the land entire, and seed clues only for the humans who were intelligent enough to pick them up and put them together. He would set the rules himself for worship, if he were to be granting divine favor, it would be _earned_ , through the traits that he valued.

Cleverness, ingenuity. That which built the pyramids. And games with rules, as he had thought before, were best. Spending time with Nephren-Ka was all well and good, but as Nyarlathotep had inspired the pharaoh, so too had the pyramid inspired Nyarlathotep. While the relentless march of time threw the bones onto the landfill, he could make of this world's history and future a kind of treasure hunt.

"Oh, Nyarlat-is-contented," Hastur intoned from the doorway, lavish, richly pleased, "You have that look on your face that tells me you're going to get some people in deep trouble."

"Me?" Nyarlathotep affected injury, putting his hand to his chest. "No. But we'll see if they can get themselves out of what they're going to get themselves into."


	3. End, And Beginning

To go forward and find a suitable individual took longer than Nyarlathotep would have guessed, but he stopped about 700 A.D, changing course geographically toward West Asia; though he felt the glory and pull of Egypt yet, he did not stray as far as he might.

And when he arrived, Hastur came with him, a loyal golden shadow stretching long into the dusk, conspicuous only in that they stood perfectly still for several seconds - _perfectly_ , drinking in the beauty of Sana'a. Nyarlathotep was not as enthused about architecture as he was about finding his quarry, hunting about the crowd for a particular young man. The man, epicene in appearance and peaceful in demeanor, exited a building at that moment, looking as if divinely prompted in Nyarlathotep's direction. He was interested, but Nyarlathotep's eyes closed and he looked away from the scholar.

"So?" Prompted Hastur, excited to witness the Crawling Chaos at work, and more excited by the beautiful geometry and (comparatively) superior sanitation of this city.

"The time is wrong." Nyarlathotep rarely made errors, he was more like a creator, impulsive and difficult to please. Sometimes, upon making a stroke to the piece, his desire changed and the art with it. He moved them again, a mere decade forward, a microscopic adjustment to the piece he was devising, and into the Rub' al Khali desert.

Surely in this place, Hastur could find no distractions - save a most beautiful tomb that was carved out of a single mountainside. Rather than go in, they savored the carved splendor from outside and lingered by Nyarlathotep, who stood waiting expectantly.

Out from the desert came the Arabic scholar from Sana'a, older in years by a decade, which passed in an eye-blink for Nyarlathotep, but recognizable still, on a camel.

"Ah. The man from the square... and your friend of the malaikah." Despite looking as though he'd trekked for some weeks without mere creature comforts like sleep, the scholar remembered and recognized Nyarlathotep, in vision if not in name, and gestured, "I know you."

"Impressive memory." Hastur remarked, in a now very dated language, but the scholar waved it off modestly.

"I saw you in my dreams often enough all those years. I am Ḥamda. I knew to find you here... I don't know how."

Nyarlathotep smiled. "You have good instincts, Ḥamda. How would you like to be remembered?"

Ḥamda's hands went to the pack on the camel's back, and he laughed, nervously. His fingers fluttered like birds across the straps. "I can't control that, sayyd."

"What if you could?" Nyarlathotep leaned to pet the camel, though he did not increase the affection of his aura, and the animal lowed complacently.

Ḥamda was too much a learned man to accuse Nyarlathotep of being a demon, even one who could appear in dreams and came in the middle of a desert with no pack animals or supplies or effort. He frowned, and lifted several bound calfskin tomes, blank, from his belongings.

"I want to be remembered for bringing enlightenment to humanity."

Hastur snickered impolitely, sobering upon a suggestive look from the Chaos. They laced their fingers, visibly sorrowful, though Nyarlathotep doubted any part was sincere.

"Let me help you." Said Nyarlathotep, to the scholar.

He spoke much, and Ḥamda wrote, pushing the very limits of human endurance to do so. When he nodded over his work, he shook himself awake. When he shivered from the cold, he sat nearer his camel, rather than waste even a few moments retrieving a blanket. The demands of his body for food and urinary relief, he ignored as long as he could, and Nyarlathotep knew full well what he was doing to himself by the time Ḥamda had filled one of the books.

"Lesson one." Nyarlathotep said paradoxically. Ḥamda was puzzled. The book had been full of information about the beginning of the universe - that Azathoth had come into being as a corona of energy and splayed all of creation outward in one explosive array, and dreamed thereafter many things, rules of physics and so on, which it loosed Nyarlathotep to spin coherent whorls in the stardust, of galaxies and of the space between the galaxies.

"You won't survive without a modicum of moderation. You need to relieve yourself - to eat, to sleep. If you wake up and I'm gone, digest what you've been told until I return. I may tell you the truth, but you are called upon to interpret it for the others. Your genius can easily destroy itself."

Ḥamda opened his mouth to argue, thought better of it and moderated his impulse. "As my master commands, so I will follow." He had been sufficiently impressed by Nyarlathotep's tale of the origin of the cosmos. Whether he believed it or not, he was intelligent enough to recognize there were forces at work that dwarfed him.

Nyarlathotep blinked. "Am I your master?"

How readily humans chose pack leaders! How quickly they debased themselves for a perceived superior. ...And how soon would they turn upon this god, and tear down his statues, and revile what did not fit their pedestal? Humans were not the first. Nyarlathotep would look closer, and see who he could favor.

"Yes." Ḥamda rose, going to relieve himself, and Hastur melted more than sat, to look through the first book. They paged slowly back and forth, admiring the hastily sketched summoning glyphs and alchemical equations.

" _The Written History of Al Azif._ That's not gonna catch on. It needs a snappy name, something punchy, something NecRomantic. Marketing!"

Nyarlathotep sat cross legged. "Much of this text won't survive, only pieces here and there. Context will lend that Azathoth is the creator of all. Some fools might even worship it. Others will go further and find the truth."

Hastur flopped against the sand, upside-down admiring the great tomb. "They make this odd calcified scaffolding stuff and grow goo around it and then the goo ages and decomposes and leaves the calcified stuff, and they build beautiful wonderful monuments, to the calcified stuff. So what's your endgame, N?"

He had to agree, it was an unusual practice. Railing against the insignificance of a lifespan, perhaps. "I'm a humble messenger, aiming to discover who listens, and how well."

When Ḥamda rejoined the camel, both the entities were gone. Remembering Nyarlathotep's instructions, he slept, and guarded the book, and left the desert for his home. Nyarlathotep, too, had shepherded Hastur home for much needed relief - to Carcosa.

The Chaos sat alone, and not alone, on a divan carved from a single block of shrulite. The tentacles he kept suppressed extended freely from his body, curling around the elegant legs of furniture and stealing over to claim the banquet set out for Hastur's triumphant return to Aldebaran. As the incarnation of the star itself, they'd never truly left, but the people were glad to see them in the flesh.

As it were.

The King in Yellow dissolved on the threshold, took conscious possession of the city of Hastur's mainframe, and synchronized themself to the song of the machines. They swept bodiless through the gold filaments that linked metro schedules with the lamp-posts, where cameras swiveled attentive turrets, there were Hastur's eyes, watching a thousand discreet locations. They swam the ethernet and drank it deep. Power stations thrummed with radiated energy, and Hastur was their safety mechanism, Hastur was the traffic lights, the climate control, the ever shifting labyrinth of back alleys and high streets, and every wall-wide television blazed to life with the Yellow Sign. Demhe's cloudy depths roiled with joy that the master had returned at last to lay claim.

Hastur's voice came over the speakers in the guest room, energized and cheery. "Talk about a shot in the arm. I _needed_ that." Augmented, a cyborg to the nines, Hastur stepped down from technological glory only to spread to less developed places in far-off star clusters, absorbing them into the collective with rapture. They were never truly separate from Demhe's continental shores, any more than a turtle from its shell.

Nyarlathotep snacked idly on vacuum-sealed fruits, swamp uwock and tazum fragments. He didn't need to eat, but often it was novelty enough to make the effort, and the tazum crystals gave a delightful crunch to the rancid uwock. One of Hastur's o'vateis came into the room with an amber-carved sceptre, so deep brown it was nearly black, with feathers frozen inside, and stood at attention. She was a priest of Carcosa, but she recognized Nyarlathotep and waited respectfully to be acknowledged.

He set down the silver packet of fruit, not bothering to draw his writhing tentacles back inside himself, and lounged on them. "Speak." He invited.

She lowered herself to one knee. "Will you be staying long, Bringer of Strange Joy?"

"Not long." He confirmed, knowing it was no insult but an attempt to plan - festivals, offerings, ceremony was enormous among the Carcosa peoples, and whosoever worshiped Hastur must take a second drink, give a second sacrifice, light a second candle for Nyarlathotep, for the Masked Priest of 'Ygiroth was Nyarlathotep's priest.

He didn't bid her rise from supplication, satisfied with her position as she was satisfied to display obeisance. His tentacles curled, a constant nest of activity, and his eyes cast a glow in the dim light. Hastur was all around them, invisible until a monitor blazed to life and displayed a yellow cloaked monarch with a single eye. This was a courtesy to the ovate, as Hastur could speak directly to Nyarlathotep if they so desired.

"Thanks for keeping house for me, angel." Hastur blew a mouthless kiss, "Got a sitch update on the Alar thing?"

The priest shook her head. "All has been quiet. The ceasefire is in effect."

"Nice." Hastur approved, "I need another territorial dispute like I need a knothole in the head."

Nyarlathotep listened patiently to discussions of political intrigue, interested only as it concerned Hastur, returning to his grazing on various banquet fare. In time, the ovate excused herself and he was left - not alone, as Hastur encircled everything, but as alone as it was possible to be in this thriving hive. After so long play-acting as a human, he was surprised to find that he missed aspects of it, and even pretended to sleep for a little while, for Hastur's enjoyment alone. The twin moons rose and pulled on the tides, and out in the city the artisans went about their crafts, ever building on the gleaming city. Higher, and wider, and more futuristic.

Nyarlathotep inspected the darkness behind his three lobed eyelids thoroughly, but found no rest.

He attended the procession outside the next morning, stayed politely for the eating of certain rare metals and plants offered to him. The Carcosans performed a play (not _that_ play) which culminated in a real, living human sacrifice. Nyarlathotep found amusement in more subtle ways than his usual: first the matches blew out, thrice, and the priest looked more nervous each time. A lighter was offered, but then the tinder failed to light, also thrice, until supplied more dry wood. Hastur kept laughing into Nyarlathotep's head, mirth bookended by static bursts.

Finally the wood caught, and the flames blazed to life around the unfortunate woman. Nyarlathotep looked skyward as if bored. In answer, the heavens opened, loosing torrential rain and rolling thunder, a spectacle worthy of any performance to douse the fire.

Some spectators ran for cover, Hastur positively cackled, and Nyarlathotep rose from his chair, dripping wet and red eyed. Lightning struck the stage. He opened his mouth as if to proclaim the coming of Azathoth, the final rending cataclysm, and said, "This behavior is beneath Carcosa, but if you insist on worship, you might listen to the messages that gods send _in their entirety_ , not simply the ones you want to hear."

He took his leave, calculating the stars' position relative to Earth and which trajectory to take that would return him to Ḥamda's continent. Naotalba sent official apology for the _social gaff_ , which spurred Nyarlathotep to discuss the matter with Hastur across their cosmic journey.

"It's very frustrating." He admitted, in a rare moment of personal weakness that Hastur alone was privy to. On occasion, Sheol Nugganoth spurred him to similar confessions, but the Goat's attention was more supportive than intimate. Hastur was the only lover with keys to Nyarlathotep's kingdom.

"The ritual killing thing?" Hastur passed with tranquility through a nebula, shifting their atoms to avoid disturbing the cosmic dust, "It's all voluntary, and I don't do animals or kids. If somebody wants to front their life for me, who am I to argue?"

"Not the killing." Nyarlathotep's three eyes narrowed, "The arrogance, the unoriginality. The _dogma._ "

"Ohh! Improv. Right, no, I get you. Chaos and the primal void. You like the freethinkers." Hastur landed on the moon, surveying the Earth, "Did we take a wrong turn somewhen?"

"No." Nyarlathotep dropped to Earth like a meteor, blazing triumph across the skies of centuries before Nephren-Ka's birth, and pulling Hastur along with him. Unless accompanied or enabled by the Crawling Chaos, the Great Old Ones could not always come and go as they pleased, they relied on sentient worship, on cults and certain actions at specific times and places to create gateways. Yog-Sothoth, keeper of the Key and opener of the Way, could be accessed to expediate matters, but the knowledge was yet hard to find.

Nyarlathotep had designs on making it easier to part the liminal clouds, and let the light of ages shine forth on every upturned face. He thought of Sabra, and that a little knowledge could be a dangerous thing for arrogant men.

_'Tis the sport, to have the enginer hoist with his own petar'._

Nyarlathotep smiled to himself, and let his bones come loose as he shifted shape again and hit the sand as a faceless sphinx. He invented nothing from whole cloth, but took inspiration from that which the humans had already created. He amassed cult after cult, moving from one location and form to another, always fluid and always accompanied by his faithful xanthous technomancer.

Wherever he succeeded in seeding belief, he sprang away through time a hundred, three hundred years on, leaving some flourishing and some ruinous. Here the Chaos arrived in the guise of Set, protector of the sun at night from the obliteration of Apophis, and the next night, embodied Apophis lunging playfully at the fiery orb. He arose cloaked as Thoth, seeking human minds receptive to the translation of his knowledge, and after, he took on the form of gods lost to antiquity. Nyarlathotep raised great monuments with charismatic fervor, lounging across thrones with Hastur at his side eager to participate. Somewhere, Atlantis sank. Somewhere, Yuggoth gave praises, as the little sister of Earth, ceremonies designed to evoke Nyarlathotep's attention.

"Feeling better?" Hastur cooed, affable but distracted, reaching across the space between Earth and Aldebaran like a long distance lover away on business.

"You've been patient." Nyarlathotep noted, instead of answering, and looked back on his garden of mythology, half flourishing legacy, half weed choked distortion. Some seeds never grew at all, and others had grown decidedly twisted against the intentions of the gardener messiah. Many of his cults had dissolved into violence and infighting, and few survived. None were adequately connected at a glance, though dedicated scholars could piece together the fragments for a larger picture.

"Time to visit Ḥamda." Nyarlathotep winked out of the city, leaving it to the sands of time, his destination: future Babylon. He sent out a psychic whistle for the scholar like a hunter to his dog, standing before the ruined tower of Babel, and aware that Hastur was admiring the structure nakedly. They partially tagged along in hopes of scoring new properties, playing with the cosmos less directly than Nyarlathotep - he played Mafia, and Hastur played Monopoly. He'd have to give the King something soon, _you've been patient_ was sly promise.

Ḥamda met them, haggard and older by more than the years could account for. He brought the book, well weathered. Nyarlathotep opened the guiding hand of mercy, and the mouth of wisdom's burden, and gave him more, because he came.

_Yog-Sothoth is the Keeper of the Key, the Opener of the Gate. Through their orbs, all knowledge, all experience, all despair and hope source from this. Anything you could possibly think to ask is Known... for a price._

Ḥamda wrote, as quick a student as ever, and asked to be relieved when the needs of his flesh took precedence - but Nyarlathotep suspected it was only in compliance with the Chaos's indication that he **should**. He didn't sleep long and his dreams were restless. The Chaos excused himself again during Ḥamda's first resting cycle, but Hastur remained behind, peering down at the being of flesh.

The scholar woke to see Hastur leaning over him, and started.

"Oh, sorry." Hastur now had mastery over a few different languages, and offered the apology in comfy Arabic, "It's fascinating how you do that." They mimed going limp, "Bam. Right to the Dreamlands."

Ḥamda hesitated. "Where is - Lord Nyarlathotep?"

"He spins a lot of plates." Hastur supplied enigmatically, sitting up, "But he'll be back. See this?" They indicated the tower, "I love this planet. All this, before you've even pulled the metals from the core, all this grace in stone and clay! I can't believe it. I could cry."

The scholar looked past Hastur to the tower, and then smiled faintly. "My Lord seems more difficult to impress, but I thank you on humanity's behalf."

"You're so very welcome." Hastur made grabbing motions for the books, and was supplied with the first, paging through it and noting the cracking and strain of the spine, "You studied this? There could be a quiz. _That_ might impress the Mighty Messenger."

Ḥamda's nervousness banked, and he laughed, recognizing it as a joke, an attempt to be friendly. There was no time to grill Hastur on the details, even cagey as Carcosa was, as Nyarlathotep arrived at a leisurely prowl from Hillah in short order.

Ḥamda lifted his head and readied his book, but the ebon skinned god sat by him, and didn't speak. He presented himself ready to be dictated to, and prompted, "Lord?"

"Do you have any questions about what you've been told?" Nyarlathotep asked him, with his eyes closed.

"I think most of it is understandable, Lord." Ḥamda risked, "Blasphemous, but consistent with what I know of science. Your explanation for the distance of the stars, and movement of the bodies, the idea that we are not the first to inhabit this world... I don't know who would believe me, but I believe _you._ ...What is the price that Yog-Sothoth demands for knowledge?"

A smile teased the corners of Nyarlathotep's mouth, seemingly against his will. "I could tell you it is happiness, or ignorance, or safety, or many long years of study. But the truth is that it varies from person to person, and how, or if, they allow information to change them. No one can go unchanged when enlightened: there's always a cost."

"The price... is different." Ḥamda murmured, chewing his lip as he wrote. "Your first book was an origin, Lord, and much of what you told me before was only the scientific knowledge I already have, given different names. A confirmation of what humanity knows. This second book is a scientific method of gaining more knowledge. Instructions on the path toward knowing more."

"Good." Nyarlathotep's almost-praise was regal, clipped. "There will be four books in total. Azathoth is creation and history, as you already know, clarifying some points. Yog-Sothoth is techniques for investigating and testing new knowledge. It may seem like magic, because all misunderstood things do at some point inspire fear and awe, but if I didn't think you were ready...." He trailed away with a raised eyebrow.

Ḥamda leapt with thirst, resuming attentive posture. "I am ready."

Later, when the book was written and Nyarlathotep took his leave with attendant citysoul Hastur, the latter's usual garrulous nature dampened. Nyarlathotep assumed it was a result of his failure to fulfill his promise, but Hastur gifted him with rare surprise.

"Did he look in rougher condition than we found him before? I don't know if we're getting the deposit back." Hastur elaborated, "I'm thinking we're doing him in."

Nyarlathotep stroked his braided beard. "That's partially why I'm spacing this out. You think it isn't enough time."

"He might not be a load-bearing wall at all." Hastur wasn't trying to be delicate. They retreated into their ceremonial silk, "Maybe another?"

A shudder ran through Nyarlathotep's form, temporarily disconnecting the bones of his shoulders until he saw fit to reattach them. "There will be. I know already he won't be half so easy to deal with." He shook off the irritation at the future ghost of Randolph Carter. Centuries lay before himself and the man's birth, but dwelling too long on that chapter of experience made him want to place eons between them.

"Not my circus, not my monkey." Hastur ceded control gracefully, "How bout checking up on Pharaoh Strength-in-Personality?"

While he smiled at the thought of Nephren-Ka, something held Nyarlathotep back from returning, just yet. He knew what it was, though it was too hot to examine directly. The 'Black Pharaoh' was not present in the threads of history yet, no glimpse forward to the grave robbing ghouls of the 20th century Englishmen revealed the exposure of Nephren-Ka's temple. If he left well enough alone at this point, the Pharaoh would give him up. If he returned... he destabilized the future again, wherever he touched, and opened the field up for more decisions.

Nephren-Ka filled Nyarlathotep with pleasure.

"We'll return to him soon." He reassured Hastur, "But no overlap. Paradoxes give me indigestion." Nyarlathotep blinked them forward in time, reluctantly passing over the decades, advancing hundreds of years...

Nyarlathotep gave a sudden klaxon roar of triumph, tearing through the Dreamlands in his Howler form. All around, beings scattered at his approach, some dropping to their knees a safe distance away to give respectful bows, but all parting as if before an inexorable wind. He would seed, and seed, until something took root and bore fruit. Again! Again!

No matter history’s distortion, or literature’s perversion. Nephren-Ka sought him, with the pure love any mortal might have for the facets he displayed of himself, and both found satisfaction in the other. No matter the _Black Pharaoh_ who would, in many timelines uncountable be considered an avatar of Nyarlathotep himself. 

Patience. Love. Discipline. Truth. All uneasy alliances to the tempestuous Chaos, but alliances still. Ever did he love science, and the crafting of comprehension of greater elemental laws; these that Azathoth sung. The physics of an open flame, the song of the vibrating strings of dimensions. The quantum kiss that was and was not.

What things on Earth could do better than amuse and enrapture, when he had a universe like this for his playground? And Hastur, his flutist, his priest, his self in other clothes, with a love reflected back at him across time and space in Gold and ritual song? 

A love he could live inside, if only for a little while. 

He blew back the centuries and left the Dreaming spheres, and Hastur followed, until they again heard the Nile lapping against the shores and piers of Tanis. 

Nephren-Ka would decide to become the Black Pharaoh, Nyarlathotep was fairly sure. But the story was only worth reading if he did not write it, and from there did sapience prove itself as precious as any life’s blood. How lonely the universe would be, with only a few fragments to call it home. 

The warm arms of Nephren-Ka embraced him as if he had been gone but a few days, when years had passed for the pharaoh, and the tattered cloth of the King in Yellow draped across him from behind, and he knew that all things were, or would be, worthwhile. 

Life, wealth, and health. Death, destruction, and defamation awaited the Black Pharaoh. Nyarlathotep knew that even if he said as much, he would not move the lion-hearted man. 

Humans were indeed a worthy offspring of Chaos.


End file.
